seeing the "good" in goodbye.

I went into my tags the other night at my LiveJournal to organize them, and ended up deleting a few, and took a few unintended trips down memory lane.  It's so odd, reading entries from four-five years ago.  Part of me wants to delete all of them, but the other part kept them, because they're my history, they're my growing-up and my evolution.


It's funny, there were so many times that I wrote (post-break-up) that I was healed, I was fine.  And I did the same in my real journal that I keep on my dresser.  There'd be times I was SURE that I was 100% okay, but looking back...I wasn't.  I wasn't, because I hadn't let go, fully, I hadn't pushed myself to be happy, and I wasn't really living like I should have been.  Even though I was saying "I'm over him," I wasn't.  Not for the first six months, or the first year.  Not for longer than that.  I was still hiding. 

It was easier, sometimes, to be hurt and angry.  It was easier to be that girl who laid on her old bedroom floor and cried, because if I was able to use heartache as a shield, I didn't have to be bold.  I didn't have to step out in front of that hurt, that anger, and be ME.  Molli. 

The girl who laughs too loud and cuses too often and says things to make other people laugh.  The girl who has too many scarves, who watches too many TV shows and loves the smell of old books.  The girl who wishes that the Tardis was real, the girl who really DOES care what a select few people think, the girl who wants to adopt every stray animal and make them her own.

I forgot who I was for a long time.

I let life pick me up and toss me around, and I got shook up and started doubting myself.  I tried to heal, but my heart wasn't in it.  It wasn't until probably about a year ago that I REALLY finally started working at being happier and letting go of things break-up wise, that my eyes were wide-open and I could see the good AND the bad.  That I realized he was just a boy and I was just a girl, and we weren't perfect and we weren't star-crossed; we were just two people who tried to make a relationship work, and couldn't.

In the beginning, I grieved.  I thought I'd done something wrong.  I thought he'd be back.  Later, I was so lonely I considered asking him to take me back because I didn't want to be alone any longer.  Then I was angry, at me, at him.  I'd heal, then still fragile, I'd break again.  And I was partially doing that to myself.  At first, yeah, he played some mind games, but that didn't last past the first year or so.  The rest was me: being afraid, being broken, being angry, and lost.

Now, I can read those old entries, and it's like a whole other person wrote them.  I know it was my second relationship, but I can't believe I was THAT impatient and immature. I've come so far since then, even though I still have a LONG way to go.  I can see now that I wasn't in the relationship I thought I was...and that I wasn't ready for the relationship I thought I wanted, and neither was he.  We were both still kids in so many ways, and I think my main hope is that he's done the growing up that I have.

I downloaded "Good in Goodbye" by Carrie Underwood the other day and the chorus struck a chord with me:

as bad as it was, as bad as it hurt

i thank god i didn't get what i thought that i deserved

sometimes life leads you down a different road

when you're holding on to someone that you gotta let go

At the time, I thought Trevor was the best I could do.  I thought he was larger than life.  I thought he GOT me.  I thought we were something world-shattering.  Now I can see that we were both trying to be who we thought the other person wanted us to be, and after awhile, the real versions of ourselves started bleeding through the cracks.  If we had gotten back together, it would have hurt me in the long run, both because I was trying to make him better, stronger, fearless, and because I was trying to be quiet, hushed, and weak.

So I DO thank God, or a higher power, or fate, or myself, or dumb luck that "I didn't get what I thought that I deserved."

Because now I can see: I deserve SO much more.  

And now...now that I'm starting to see some truths, I think I'm ready to put myself back out there.  I told myself after the break-up, that I had to get my shit together before I could even THINK about dating again.  It's taken a  LONG time.  But I'm getting healthier slowly, and I've learned a lot about myself: about what I want and don't want, about who I am and am not, and about love, and how I want to treat others and be treated.  I still have a lot of work to do, but...

I think I'm ready, or at least a lot closer.